


new ways to touch the sky

by ace_corvid



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Allusions to Chronic illness, Angst, Depression, Dick Grayson Needs a Hug, Dick Grayson-centric, Gen, Gratuitous references to the Fall of Icarus, Hurt Dick Grayson, Hurt No Comfort, Mental Health Issues, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Serious Injuries, She's not even mentioned and it's barely implied but I'm tagging for safety, Some Humor, Teeny Tiny blink and you'll miss it reference to Catalina Flores, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:08:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27675823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ace_corvid/pseuds/ace_corvid
Summary: What's the best way to deal with someone who can fly?You clip their wings.(Trauma has a way of catching up to you. Dick Grayson has a lot of catching up to do.)
Comments: 22
Kudos: 183
Collections: Dick Grayson Fic Exchange 2020





	new ways to touch the sky

**Author's Note:**

  * For [leighbird](https://archiveofourown.org/users/leighbird/gifts).



> hi! this is my gift for Ghoul_FunGhoul, for the Dick Grayson Fic Exchange! The Prompt was "Angst! Anything with lots of emotion: could be NSFW, torture, mental illness, or a combination of it all." I decided to focus on mental illness, because that's what I was most comfortable writing from those!
> 
> I really hope you enjoy it! 
> 
> title from: Grace Curley, The Light that Binds Us- "Sun-brushed hands trailed circles on his wings, opening new ways to touch the sky. The dance is the dalliance of the whispers, unsaid desires brighter than eternal suns. His teeth of flint and steel, the sun boy’s lips like ichor."

_Icarus should have waited for nightfall,  
the moon would have never let him go _

_-Nina Mouawad, Blue Sun_

It begins like this; Dick Grayson is a creature born with wings. It was never a question of when he will fly, but rather, how high?

The answer was always going to be too close to the sun. But for the moment he is young and new, and basks in the warmth of it. He has time to learn. And he _will_ learn, if nothing else than because it is the way of things.

For now, though, he soars, and he smiles, and it's like sunlight.

He watches his parents fall and learns, for the first time, that not everyone has wings.

Nothing will ever be the same ever again.

It's the cusp of morning when Dick Grayson wakes up on one of the worser days. Life has not been kind to him, but he's yet to stop moving through it. The routine is familiar. Dick wakes up with a gasp, and almost immediately knows it's going to be one of the days where he wishes that he didn't. 

This is not a new occurrence.

Lead sits in his stomach, a black hole he struggles under the weight of, and his head is pounding. This too is familiar to him these days. The first thing he does is struggle for some aspirin, grabbing it off his bedside cabinet and swallowing it dry.

Then he sighs and gets up, because sometimes there was nothing else to do but start moving. No matter how much he didn't want to.

Really,  _really_ , didn't want to. But he moves, all the same.

Groaning, he shoved himself into the kitchen, trying to rub the blur out of his eyes. A quick glance at the clock told him it was 5 in the morning. Two hours sleep, then. He could work with that. Probably.

Memories of last night's nightmares absently played out in the back of his mind as he gulped water, fleeting but painful. It was like the worlds worst recap, reminding you where you were at in a TV show.  _And that's what you missed on, trauma!_

Coffee. Coffee would fix this. He pretends he is not trembling.

As if anything _could_ fix distant memories of a trapeze, lines snapping, bodies falling, and then-

A dead brother. A beaten one. A smaller one yet who he  _left,_ he left him, he left Damian on his own, let him mourn him after coming back to life. Everything piles up so quickly he can't catch a break, with Bruce, Bludhaven, Blockbuster, Cata-  _no-_

_Fuck_ .  _No. Don't think about it._

_Don't._

Everything ached as Dick dragged himself to his coffee machine, a lifetime of crime fighting protesting every time he moved. The years had only made him more flexible, with the strength to hit harder, but pain was the unspoken price to pay. The currency was a near constant stiffness, thick scar tissue riddling his skin, and an admittedly worrying amount of nerve damage. He could handle it, but that didn't make it fun to deal with.

He went through the absent motions of making the coffee. It's warm and bitter, and tastes like sludge that honestly should have eaten the spoon. It was exactly what he needed, and any self respecting vigilante's holy grail.

He ignored the voice in his head that he'd need something holier than this to get by. Divine intervention, maybe. Diana could probably hook him up with that.

Dick finally opened his phone, wincing at the light. A couple of missed calls he should probably care about but didn't; Tim and Jason among them. He flitted through a couple of texts, not really in the mood to answer any.

_Dami <3:_

Grayson, you haven't been to Gotham in days. You are missed.

**Read 5:37 AM**

_Baby Bird:_

Dick are you ok? Pick up your phone soon please. We're all a little worried. You know you can talk to me about anything right?

**Read 5:38 AM**

_Little Wing:_

Stop scaring your fucking brothers and pick up the damn phone Dick before I come to Blud and drag you back to Gotham myself

**Read 5:38 AM**

_Kid Idiot:_

hey whats with the radio silence rob? you doing good? ik youre probs busy but call me when you can ig! don't work urself too hard lol

**Read 5:39 AM**

_Oh Wonder Gal:_

hey dick it's donna, can you call me-

He swept the texting app off the screen, mercilessly pushing down the guilt. He just didn't feel like talking so much recently. It was fine, he was fine.

There were emails to go through too, pertaining to civilian life sit dusty and untouched in his inbox- they feel so out of touch with how he actually felt, who he actually was, that they were nearly hard to read.

Pretending took a toll on a person.

He tries. He tries to be the happy one, the eternally optimistic, like they all want him to be- maybe even need him to be. But the smile begins to feel more like a mask than the cowl each and every day. And he's  _tired._ For once, he wishes he could actually look like it.

Hope was a thing with feathers, and Dick was once too.

Among the flashes of last night's terrors is the phantom feel of a body pressing against him. It crawls across his skin. He feels disgusting, sweaty and gross. He needs a shower.

With a sigh, he called in sick to work.

Not today. It's just _one_ day. He won't be missed; this time at least.

He thinks it ends like this;

His heart is tied to a bomb. It almost sounds like poetry- _look what loving has done to him. What caring has got him._ But there's nothing beautiful or poignant about this metaphor- it's a cold and harsh reality and he is going to die, and it will hurt.

He'd always thought he would have fallen to his death. Now _that_ would have been poetry.

He cannot remember it well, so he cannot say that he was afraid, but he still remembers being tired, if nothing else than because that particular feeling is yet to stop.

He was going to die to save everyone. Give up his wings. It was always gonna end this way, somehow, but the bomb tied to his _fucking heart_ was a surprise.

Except that's not the end, is it?

He dies, but it's not the end. He's dragged back to this plain of existence, come hell or high water. Nightwing always keeps on moving, and life isn't done with him yet.

Bruce sends him away, to act as if he is dead anyway and to let his brothers mourn him, and it _burns._ So what is there left to do except go up in flames?

He's too much like Icarus for his own good, and he has finally found the sun.

Of course just because he skipped his day job today, doesn't mean he gets to skimp on the night job.

Bludhaven cannot survive without Nightwing, after all. Bludhaven barely survived as it was.

Being Nightwing is a relief and a drug, an illness and the cure for it. It hurts, it makes things difficult and sometimes near ruins him. But if he had to give it up, he'd go insane.

It feels too much like flying.

It's not like he's addicted to the adrenaline, nor the thrill of the fight. It's just that this is what he has been made to do, forged in heat and fury as a weapon wielded with the edge of grief. He wants to change the world, and worlds just don't change on their own. If he can save even one person, then it will be worth it when he can not even save himself.

 _But who will save you?_ The streets of Bludhaven seem to ask him.

Dick doesn't answer, and Nightwing begins the first fall of the night before he races through the sky on a grapple line and a prayer.

Besides, Nightwing is a creature of the night, and the moon cannot possibly melt wings.

There's a quick take down of a mugger to begin, because even Nightwing at his worst is better than the run of the mill thugs on the ground, and that's just a fact. He knows what he can do, and he knows he's good at doing it. He's tired though. Sore and aching. The bruises of Atlas are stark on his shoulder's, the aftermath of carrying the world on his back.

And when you're tired? That's when you make the worst mistakes.

So he goes along with the beat of the night, and hopes he'll get back to his apartment in time to have nightmares.

Except;

Dick wasn't expecting anything higher level than some low-level mobsters tonight. Most of this week had been devoted to dismantling a drug ring, so he'd been expecting a slow night at most, maybe a bank robbery with some unfortunate timing.

He hadn't been expecting experienced fighters with this kind of weaponry.

He definitely hadn't been expecting a crack shot at his legs mid flip, effectively grounding him.

By the time he got tasered and passed out, he'd pretty much adjusted his expectations, and it seemed pretty par for the god damn course.

What's the best way to deal with someone who can fly?

You clip their wings.

He wakes up in a mobsters lair, because of course he does. When he comes to, a spindly little man with a greasy face stands over him looking very smug, half way through a villainous speech that Nightwing hasn't actually been awake for. Something about it taking new blood to finally be the one to take down Nightwing. Must be new on the scene. He can't believe he got jumped by an _amateur_.

He's in a pretty ornate room, a solid oak desk and nice chairs. The floor he's cuffed to is carpeted, and Dick distantly notes that some of his stitches have ripped, and he's bleeding into the cream shag. That'll be a bitch to clean.

God everything hurts though. Well, not quite everything; there's just some parts of his body where he doesn't really feel anything any more. Too much nerve damage. Doesn't lessen the near insufferable amounts of pain burning through the rest of his body though. He's too busy wallowing in the stupid hurt and ruminating on the fact that this guy was _new_ and _still got him_ to notice that he's not actually paying attention to said capturer, when a sharp yell draws his head.

“Are you listening?” The apparent mob boss asks, genuinely sounding offended.

“No.” Nightwing answers honestly. “You started too early. I was out of it for about half, and by the time I came too, I was pretty much already lost.”

“What should I- I mean.” Now the _mob boss_ looks lost. “Should I start again?”

A pause.

“Do you want to?” Nightwing asked, voice strained through the pain.

“I don't know.” He crosses his arm and taps his foot. “I didn't really expect to have this problem.”

“Understandable, these things need practice.” Dick nods sagely. “You just need to work on your timing, the delivery seems fine.”

“Yeah, thanks, uh.”

“From the top?”

“I think I'm just going to skip to killing you.”

“I mean I'd rather you didn't.”

What did it say about him that he was able to quip with villains like nothing had changed from his Robin days, like nothing was wrong, but he still couldn't bring himself to talk to his family, friends and loved ones? Probably nothing good.

“In that case,” The mob boss with his little rat face crooned. “Let's have some fun, shall we?”

Well, that seems like it's as good a time to slip his handcuffs as any, considering he's been picking the lock the entire time. He breaks out of them easily, pushing through the pain to stand up and fight, because sometimes it felt like that was all he knew how to do.

The mob boss stares at him for a moment, and then tries to turn around and run, but Dick doesn't let him, grabbing him around the neck with his thighs and pulling him down to the ground easily. He uses the desk to get leverage to deliver an extra powerful kick to a goon that rushed in through the door. More of them are pouring in by the second. Not good.

Everyone thinks he's a show boat, that he's flamboyant, expends energy for no good reason, but they're wrong. Dick Grayson defies physics on a regular basis, but he knows his physics pretty damn well too, and the truth of it is this; flips make for a much greater force, packing a hell of a lot of strength behind kicks, punches or whatever. He hits so much harder coming off a flip that it's nearly insane. It's why Robin was so effective- _is_ so effective, considering his fighting style is pretty much passed down to them.

His parents gave him more to fight with that they know.

So he flies through the air, still graceful even downtrodden, electrified and beaten, and he fights for all he's worth.

He takes down at least 20 of them on his own before his leg locks up mid-jump, protesting each movement so hard that it _stops working,_ allowing one lucky goon the perfect opportunity to kick him out of a window, sending him tumbling to the ground with no grapple line. Dick doesn't know how many stories up they are, all he knows is that he's heading to the ground- fast. And this is going to hurt.

He's _falling_. And he can't help but wonder how long he has been, really.

(Dick Grayson's wings are not made out of wax. They cannot melt or fall to pieces. In that regard, he is safer.

Another fun little fact, however; no matter how much he flies, Dick Grayson's wings are not _real_.)

When Icarus fell, the ocean is what claimed him. If the impact didn't kill him, the drowning would have.

Dick, on the other hand, does not have an ocean below him, but he had already been drowning long before he hit the concrete below.

_… “Nightwing!!” …_

_… “New Mob Boss on the scene gunned for him” …_

_… “Grayson?” …_

… “ _I found him!” …_

_… “Call Leslie- now!” …_

_… “Fuck-” …_

_… “Dick, stay with us!” …_

Dick wakes up in the Batcave infirmary, which is one of his least favourite places to wake up, because it always means he's fucked up in some capacity.

“Thank God you're awake.” Tim sighed the minute he saw Dick's eyes flutter open. “You scared me there for a minute, Dick.”

His little brother looks tired, bags heavy under his eyes like the ones Dick had been seeing in the mirror recently.

“Tim?” He croaked, and Tim rushed to get him some water. “What happened?”

“You tried to take on thirty people at once and got tossed out of a window is what.”

Dick didn't know how many painkillers he was on right now, but he essentially felt like a walking Bruce, so that added up.

“How many stories?” Dick said half out of curiosity.

“Four. We think you instinctively rolled or something because your arms took a lot more of a beating, and your body armour definitely helped. The fall wasn't actually that bad, all things considered.”

“How did you guys know to find me? I was in Blud.” Dick breathes in and out at the prospect that Bruce was still tracking him like a child.

“Deathstroke.” Tim grits out, and wow, Dick hadn't been expecting that answer. “He gave us a tip that a new guy on the scene was out for your blood, and he was making his move tonight. We knew pretty soon after he got you, but by the time we got there you'd already managed to get yourself defenstrated.”

“And he couldn't have told _me_ this _why?_ ” Dick said incredulously, almost offended.

“I don't presume to understand anything about Deathstroke.”

“How long have I been out?” Dick asked, deciding to give up that line of questioning.

“About three days give or take.” Tim said, pushing a hand through the unwashed black hair curling into his face. “It wouldn't have been that long if you hadn't've already torn your stitches beforehand and you actually looked after yourself from time to time. It was actually the exhaustion that got you before the injuries, you know that? You fell from a building, but you were _just_ that tired.”

“Tim-”

“Save it.” Tim cut in, somehow managing to not sound angry at all. “Damian sat here the entire time, completely refused to leave you. I only just got him to go upstairs and sleep. Jason is actually still here too, mostly talking to Alfred, but _here_. Everyone's worried. You haven't been answering any of our calls, and we're not blind you know. We can see you falling to pieces.”

“You don't have to be worried about me.” Dick tried to smile, but it was hollow and empty.

“Yes we do.” Tim scowled. “Clearly, we have reason to be worried. You haven't so much as picked up your phone all week.”

“I've just been tired.” Dick said, rubbing a hand into his eyes.

Tim's eyes are sharp and they don't leave him once. He looks like he knows more than he should, and it contrasts the youngness of his face to the point that it's almost uncanny.

“Do you remember,” He said slowly. “Before... everything. I used to ring you up when I was having trouble and just talk to you, _even if_ it wasn't about what was getting to me. You just let me sit there and chat to you, whether it was about what was going on in my head or a new video game that was coming out that week.”

“Yeah Tim. I remember. I was there.” Dick raised an eyebrow, and Tim took Dick's hand as he stared him dead in the eye.

“You can always call me, you know. About anything.”

“You don't do that any more though, do you.” It isn't a question.

“Then it's a two way street. You're pulling away- from _everyone._ And I'm not gonna let you. I'll call you if you call me.” Tim nodded decisively, and Dick stamped down on the hope that threatened to bloom.

He and Tim would never be as close as they were again. It was futile to want it. Dick had spent so long slowly knocking those walls down, that watching Tim build them back up around himself higher and stronger had hurt worse than being shot. They would never be fully lowered for Dick ever again, and it ached within his chest to know that.

This offer could potentially fix things. It's a bridge made out of olive branches. But Dick knows better than to want.

“I'll think about it.” Dick fudged, and Tim glared at him.

“Seriously Dick, you can't keep doing this. You need to talk to _someone_ , it doesn't have to be me! But you don't need to do this alone! I mean-”

Tim suddenly goes silent and utterly still, and Dick knows without even looking that Bruce has just walked into the room.

Dick would literally just love to be anywhere but here right now, really.

“Look, just- Dick. You don't have to be OK.” Tim said, gripping Dick's hand so tight it felt like he could feel it through the patches of nerve damage. “Someone told me that once. _It's OK if you're not OK_.”

“Oh yeah? Who?”

“You did.” Tim said quietly. Dick fell silent.

Tim sighed, pushing himself up from the chair, giving Bruce a hard look before softening, letting go of Dick's hand.

“Think about taking your own advice, yeah?” Tim smiled, brittle and bittersweet.

Silence slinks into the room as he leaves.

Bruce Wayne was a man of smoke and mirrors. He was hard to read, and usually you only saw what he wanted you to see reflected back at you, constantly deflecting and making things harder.

He'd never been the same, after Jason had died, and the man Dick used to know was yet to make a reappearance, no matter how much Dick wanted him, desperately.

“I think we need to talk, chum.” The man sounds slightly broken. He always did when one of them was like this. He'd get over it and would be back to barking orders soon enough.

“You can lecture me later, you know.” Dick groaned.

“I'm not going to lecture you.” Bruce said. “You don't need that right now.”

“I've never _needed_ it.” Dick shoved his face into the pillow. “Usually got it anyway though. Or fired.”

He tries not to sound bitter, but fails pretty miserably. Bruce blinks in surprise; Dick has pretty much forgiven him for it these days, so he doesn't mention it so much any more, but sometimes that old resentment just reared it's ugly head.

“I- uh.” Bruce stuttered out and then swallowed. “I guess I deserve that.”

Dick, very pointedly, does not say anything. Doesn't even look at him. He's the eldest now, and he can't just pick fights with no regard like he used to. He needs to set an example, no matter how much he'd like to scream and yell and rage and cry about how much it wasn't fair.

“Yeah.” Bruce sighed. “I thought maybe you'd like to talk about how you've been feeling lately?”

Dick slowly sat up to stare at him. What the fuck? That wasn't in the script.

“Who are you and where is Batman?” Dick said, finally looking at him.

“I'm being serious, chum.”

“So am I.” Dick let his mouth hang open. “How many years have I tried to get you to talk about your emotions? Hell, even about acknowledging _mine_?”

“It's been more than a few.” Bruce said, looking distinctly uncomfortable. Good.

“Yeah. But now it's convenient for you, _now_ you want to talk about it?”

“I just thought you might like to. I've made a lost of mistakes, but I need to start making up for them some time, don't I?” Bruce ran his hands over Dick's hair, and he leaned into the touch despite everything going on in the conversation. Dick had never been one to turn down physical affection, and Bruce knows it.

“And if I don't want to talk about anything?” Dick challenged.

Memories of Bruce forcing him to let his brothers believe he was dead were gone as quick as they came, but they shake him up all the same. He grits his teeth before Bruce can catch his nerves.

Bruce frowned. “You don't have to, but-”

“Good.” Dick interrupted. “Because I don't want to, and I'm not gonna.”

“Dick-” Bruce tried, but Dick wasn't having any of it.

“No, Bruce.” He warned. “Push me again, see where it gets you.”

Bruce leaves quietly, and Dick is alone. Usually Dick's the one who leaves.

It ends like this;

Dick Grayson is on a hospital bed in the cave. He is not going to die, but he is made of broken pieces. He misses his parents. He misses the Bruce that used to live in the empty shell of his dad that walks around now. He has so many regrets and memories, he's made so many mistakes, and he feels them as if they're a physical weight on his chest.

His skin is made of scars patched together with isolated pieces of untouched flesh, and the days where he is not in pain are rare, but he cannot stop to breathe. There are people he needs to save, and family he needs to be there for.

He's not doing enough. He needs to be better. Jason still doesn't trust him, his relationship with Tim is still frayed, strained and distant, and Damian still acts like he is grieving for him sometimes. Cass has always seen through his bullshit and has never had any patience for it, and he doesn't know Duke as well as he should yet. None of it's enough.

It ends like this;

Dick Grayson, surrounded by family, alone.

He needs to be OK for them, but he is not. As long as they don't look too hard, he can pretend he is. He's the happy one, he'll be happy for them.

No matter that his memories are living and dangerous and out for blood, and he doesn't know if he can handle them. It's all so much, and life has not been kind. The past isn't supposed to haunt him like this, but it does, viciously.

There is no respite, and no refuge, and he feels as though he has fell from the sky.

It ends like this;

Dick Grayson looks into the empty room, rooted in memories and burning with pain, and sobs under the weight of broken wings.

**Author's Note:**

> i dont usually enjoy writing hurt no comfort but im not ashamed to say that was a little fun
> 
> thank you so much for reading, see you next time! And if you enjoyed this, a comment would really make my day!


End file.
